BSWUA News Summary for 2024/2025
Dear Members,
In order to be well informed for our Annual Meeting here are some important and major developments from the last year.
Our organization is in good standing financially and with our related legal obligations.
There has been much work done behind the scenes, most of which was accomplished by our Treasurer, Justin Dennison, and also by the Board of Directors.
None of us took any compensation for all the work for the past three years.
Our relation with the City of Ouray continues to be less than harmonious.
As you all know, we are charged double the fee of the City Water Users while we own, maintain our own infrastructure and keep this cumbersome BSWUA organization running on a volunteer basis.
To find out our legal standing regarding this unfair situation, we have received legal advice from Mr. Rodney Fitzhugh, Attorney from Ridgway.
Note that the cost of the attorney’s fees were far less than our interest earned from our Live Oak CD for the year and only a fraction of the total savings by other means.
His research indicated that we actually would have a strong legal standing in the court of law,
whereby, the City would have to give a rational basis for charging us double while we own and maintain our infrastructure.
Based on this information we tried to negotiate with the City, met with the new City Administrator and exchanged messages with the Mayor, Ethan Funk.
The end result was a total uncompromising rejection by Mr. Ethan Funk.
At this point we paused further pursuit of our cause until the upcoming annual meeting so the members can vote on it.
After three years of selfless and excellent performance by our Treasurer, Justin Dennison, he has decided to step down. He never took a penny for compensation. He has done an enormous amount of work to improve, update and modernize our record keeping systems.
Our Secretary, Jackie Bremer has also decided to step down. We are thankful for their service!
These departures leave a large hole in our organization. We have been and continue to ask for volunteers to fill these positions.
If, however, we cannot find any volunteers, our best choice is to hire some administrative help to continue with tasks. Thus far we have not been able to find any interested party to help us out.
This is becoming a true emergency.
On a side note, I’d like to mention the current problems with the City of Ouray Waste Water Treatment Plant. All of us who actually live here are aware of the terrible smells coming out of this new and very expensive facility. This not only makes the current residents’ lives miserable, but it will affect real estate resale values and rental feasibility.
The City is asking for patience and compassion from us. That’s a very interesting concept from them after our failed negotiation with them. Anybody who is affected by this should keep pressuring the City to find a permanent solution. More people need to attend the City Council meetings and/or contact the mayor and/or administrators. We should likely have some tangible results when people speak up and address this problem.
I hope this information is helpful for the BSWUA membership at large.
I encourage all of you to please pay attention to our concerns and stay involved with our BSWUA organization. Please attend our annual meeting.
Sincerely,
Laszlo Kubinyi, President